Street Boys Page 13

  “What will you do?” she asked. “When you get back to your home?”

  “I was going to be a lawyer before this started,” he said. “Now, I don’t really know. It’s going to be hard to look at words in a law book after you’ve seen what a war does to those laws.”

  “You don’t look much like a lawyer,” she said, shaking her head in a teasing way. “Not the kind I’ve seen, anyway.”

  “What kind is that?”

  “You have an honest face,” Nunzia said, shifting her weight and looking at Connors with eyes that caused him to blush. “Most of the lawyers that prowled around Naples while Mussolini was in power did not.”

  “I wouldn’t make much of a lawyer, anyway,” Connors said with a shrug. “Honest face or not. Truth is, I don’t really know what I’m going to do if I make it back home. I haven’t thought past having a couple of beers and going to a baseball game.”

  “It sounds like a good place to start,” Nunzia said.

  Connors looked up and saw a boy standing across from his windshield, a small shearing knife clutched in the palm of his right hand. He had on a pair of worn black shorts, no shirt and no shoes. He was rail thin, with hazel eyes and a head full of floppy light brown hair. He trembled where he stood, his soot-stained feet digging into the parched dirt. He held the point of the knife out, his arm stretched and aimed at Connors.

  “Cose e, piccino?” Nunzia asked him.

  “Devo pagare per quello che a fatto,” the boy said, his teeth clenched, frail body matted in sweat.

  “E cosa a fatto?” Nunzia asked, leaning one leg out of the jeep.

  “Mi a mattzatto la mamma,” the boy said, tears starting to fall down the sides of his face.

  “What’s he saying?” Connors asked Nunzia, her face now a blanket of sadness.

  “His mother was killed,” she said, her eyes on the boy. “He thinks you did it. He just sees a soldier in uniform. He’s too young to know the difference between a Nazi and an American.”

  “And he wants to get even,” Connors said. “So would I.”

  “Questo signor non a mattzatto a nessuno,” Nunzia said, stepping out of the jeep and walking toward the boy. “E venuto per ci aiutare.”

  Connors jumped out of the jeep and saw the fear rise in the boy’s eyes. He kept his hands at his side as he moved. He stopped when he was inches away from the dull blade of the knife, looking directly into the boy’s smeared face. He raised his hand slowly and rested it on the boy’s arm, giving it a gentle squeeze. With his other hand, Connors moved aside the boy’s wet hair and brushed away the dirt and tears. He bent down on both knees and was eye-level with the boy, each staring at the other. Behind them, Nunzia clasped her hands across her mouth and stifled an urge to cry. Connors moved his hands away from the boy and left them back at his side, his eyes moist, locked onto the small, pained face in front of him. The boy, still trembling, his nose running and his cheeks flushed red and glowing, dropped the knife and let it fall to the dirt by his feet. Connors stayed on his knees, the air around him still and silent, allowing the moment to decide the next move. He heard Nunzia sob openly, while he held his own in check. All that mattered now was the shivering boy in front of him, who only moments earlier had been willing to kill in order to relieve the burden of his pain.

  The boy took a slow, careful step forward. Then, after a slight pause, another. He was now inches away from Connors, close enough to smell the stale sweat and rumpled odor of his uniform. The boy took a quick glance at the Thunderbird patch on the sleeve of Connors’s shirt and then rushed forward, his arms wrapped around the soldier’s neck, his head buried in his chest. Connors reached out and held the boy close to him, letting him cry and wail, letting the suffering and longing he was much too young to endure rush to the surface.

  28

  16TH PANZER DIVISION HEADQUARTERS

  FIFTEEN MILES OUTSIDE OF NAPLES. SEPTEMBER 27, 1943

  Colonel Von Klaus walked alone, head down, shoulders sagging, along an empty stretch of burnt grass. He was a man who liked to avoid conversation or mingling with his soldiers in the hours before a mission was to begin, even one so outwardly simple as his current assignment. He sought, instead, to find solace in his own thoughts, going over a plan in detail, giving weight to the repercussions of each proposed maneuver. He still felt a slight tinge of unease over the Naples mission. He had been in far too many battles, seen too many of his men fall to enemy fire, to allow his emotions to surrender to the notion of no resistance from a virtually abandoned city.

  His short meeting with young Carlo Petroni had done nothing but amplify his concerns. Perhaps it was nothing beyond the nonsensical ramblings of a boy out to make a profit. Or maybe the thief spoke the truth, that there was a mobilization going on in Naples, gearing up to take on his tanks as soon as they set foot on Neapolitan soil. He had followed the tenets of his duty and had sent word of the meeting back to high command, alerting them to the possibility of a minor counterattack taking shape. He reenforced what he knew they wanted to hear, that no force, regardless of how large or small, would prevent the successful completion of his mission.

  Von Klaus never doubted his victory. He only fretted now over the manner in which he should battle a force that would clearly be small, young, poorly armed and hidden. Their only visible advantage was that they would be more familiar with the terrain than his troops. But even granting them such a minor concession could not make up for the amount of experience and skill his men brought onto a field of battle. The resistors would, in their best moments, amount to little more than an annoyance that needed to be swatted aside. Nonetheless, Von Klaus would be sending his men into a fight against children, and that was a thought that did not sit comfortably on his mind. It was the one ingredient missing from his arsenal of experience, and one he preferred not to add. His mind flashed briefly on his son, living in safety in a city that seemed destined to be bombed, and wondered how he would react if put in a similar position as the boys waiting for him down on the streets of Naples. He rubbed at the corners of his eyes, finding himself fatigued for the first time by the very thought of armed conflict. He stared out at the barren fields around him, at what had once been lush olive groves and vineyards, now left in ruin and decay. Soldiers never get to see a country at its best. They are always present when conditions are at their bleakest, people their most desperate. Every stretch of land he had seen in his military career had been charred and every foreign face belonged to that of an enemy.

  Now, for the first time, those faces would be those of children.

  “A telegram for you, sir.” Kunnalt’s voice boomed out from behind him, breaking into his moments of silence. “From command headquarters.”

  “Is it marked for my eyes only?” Von Klaus asked, still with his back to his young aide.

  “No, sir.”

  “Then read it to me. Let me hear what great wisdom they have to share.”

  Von Klaus lit a cigarette as Kunnalt rustled open the sheaf of white paper, careful not to tear it as he did. “Well?” he asked, finally turning to face him, catching the loss of color from his face, shaken by the typed words he held in his hand. “What do they have to say for themselves?”

  “It’s their response to our notification of a potential conflict in Naples from some of the children who remained behind,” Kunnalt said, his voice a few octaves lower than normal.

  “I can’t wait,” Von Klaus said, cigarette squeezed between his teeth.

  “They have scrapped plans for one more night of heavy bombing prior to our arrival tomorrow,” Kunnalt said. “But they will send one plane over the city.”

  Von Klaus walked closer toward Kunnalt, his eyes catching the tremble in his hands and his ears tuned to the cracking of his voice. “For what purpose?” he asked.

  “They will be dropping 100,000 pieces of candy onto the city streets, sir,” Kunnalt said slowly. “Each one wrapped and laced with poison.”

  Von Klaus dragged on his cigarette
and lowered his eyes to the ground. He reached a hand out and took the sheet of paper from Kunnalt’s trembling fingers. “Don’t speak of this to any of the men,” he told him in hushed tones. “I don’t want my soldiers to feel shame while they fight for their country.”

  “Why would they give such an order, sir?”

  Von Klaus rested the lit end of his cigarette against the thin sheet of paper and watched it catch fire. He held it, his eyes following the path of the flames as they burned the orders into black crisps, floating gently upwards into the air. “They do it because they are evil, Kunnalt,” Von Klaus said. “And they know no other way. But don’t ever lie to yourself. Not one of us, officer or soldier, is immune to that evil. In fact, we are very much a part of it. After all, we are the ones who lead its army.”

  “What time do you wish us to break camp, sir?” Kunnalt asked, still visibly shaken.

  “An hour before dawn,” Von Klaus said, turning to walk down the path of a once proud garden. “Have the lead and rear tanks fly high the Nazi flag. Raise the flag on the trucks as well. I want anyone who’s left in the city to be able to see it from a distance. Might help put a dent in their courage and weaken their will to fight. The fewer dead we leave behind, the better we’ll all feel.”

  “Is there any message you would like me to relay to the men, sir?” Kunnalt asked, the weight of the colonel’s despair measured in his own deliberate tones.

  Von Klaus turned and gave him a sad smile. “Yes,” he said. “Tell them not to accept any candy from strangers.”

  29

  PARCO VIRGILIANO, NAPLES

  SEPTEMBER 27, 1943

  Vincenzo escorted the wooden cart through the wrought-iron gates, his hold on the mule’s rein firm but gentle. Franco manned the stirrups, guiding the cart with great care over the cobblestone streets, the slab rear of the wagon filled with unearthed mines wrapped in children’s clothing. The sides of the wagon were weighted down with heavy rocks, helping to give it a smoother ride.

  “Is this the last of it?” Vincenzo asked, gazing up at Franco.

  Franco tied the leather stirrups around the wooden stump and jumped to the ground, landing in front of Vincenzo. “I counted about thirty in all,” he said. “But there must be at least several hundred more, scattered throughout the main streets.”

  “We’ve been lucky so far, but there’s no reason to push it,” Vincenzo said. “What we have now will have to be enough.”

  Franco put an arm on Vincenzo’s shoulder and looked at his best friend. “I thought you were wrong for coming back here,” he said. “Then this morning in the piazza, when I saw smiles on faces that hadn’t smiled in years, I saw that it was the right thing to do.”

  Vincenzo stared into the cart, the mines laid out in a careful order. “I don’t know if it’s wrong or right,” he said. “If a battle starts, those smiles will disappear and many of our own will die. We’ve all felt the bite of war, but none of us has ever fought in one. I don’t know what that will be like or how many of us will have the courage to endure it.”

  “How much more courage do we need than what we’ve already shown?” Franco asked. “We live without a home, food or clean water. None of us will ever see our parents again. What’s on these streets, what’s left here, is all the family and home we might ever know. You were right to want to return to that.”

  Vincenzo looked around at the vast grounds of the park that housed the tomb of Virgil, many of the thick trees and gardens spared the wrath of the bombs. “My father used to bring my mother here for their Sunday walk,” Vincenzo said. “I was just a baby, my sisters not even born. They would hold hands and laugh and talk, stopping under a tree to share a piece of fruit and watch me run across the grass. I always remember her smile, standing there, head resting on the shoulder of the man she loved. I would look back at her and laugh, making her smile even brighter. I don’t know what will happen to us, Franco. But I know we won’t laugh or smile that way again.”

  The two of them stood next to the cart, letting the warm breeze and a welcome silence engulf them. They were two teenagers forced to abandon all joy and folly to tackle the decisions of grown men cast into armed conflict. It was a challenge both grasped with tender hands.

  “We’ll laugh again, Vincenzo,” Franco said with a slight shrug. “We have no choice. We’re Neapolitans. It’s in our blood.”

  30

  STRADA VICINALE PALAZZIELLO, NAPLES

  SEPTEMBER 27, 1943

  Connors and Nunzia stood on the edge of a hill and looked down at the main road leading into Naples. There, spread out before them across a two-mile span, was the full force of the German 16th Panzer Division. Eighty Mark IV tanks paved the way for more than five hundred well-armed and well-trained soldiers. Behind them, sand jeeps pulled antiaircraft artillery and two dozen mules ambled along, packed down with bombs and flame throwers. Connors turned away from the convoy and looked at Nunzia. “They’re heading toward the main road,” he said. “That’ll lead them to the center of the city and from there to the piers.”

  “Will they ever just leave us alone?” she said in a low voice. “They’ve taken everything and still aren’t satisfied. I don’t think they’ll ever be satisfied until we’re all dead.”

  “We should get back,” Connors said, his eyes still on her. “Help get those boys ready for a fight.”

  “Do you hate them?” she asked, staring down at the convoy.

  “Who?”

  “The Nazis,” Nunzia said.

  “Most of the time,” Connors said. “A lot of those soldiers are no different from me or the guys in my unit. Same age, pretty much. Same background. Drafted into the army, taken to some country and told to fight and kill the guy on the other side of the field. At least you start out thinking that way. Then one night you’re sitting in camp, having coffee and a smoke with some G.I. from the same part of the country as you, sharing a laugh and some memories. Then a bullet goes in his head and he ends up flat on the ground right in front of you. See that happen often enough, you don’t think the guy on the other side is like you at all. And all you want to do is kill him.”

  “Have you killed many?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Connors said. “But no matter how many of them you kill, it doesn’t erase the image of a guy in the same uniform as you, bleeding in your arms, just lying there, waiting to die. It’s different from losing family, but it stays with you just as long and just as hard. It turns you into another kind of person. Or maybe just the kind of person you were all along.”

  “You’re a good man, Connors,” Nunzia said, her warm eyes staring at him from under the shade of the tree. “Put in the middle of a horrible war.”

  “I’m a good soldier,” Connors said. “That’s different from being a good man.”

  31

  CASTEL DELL’OVO, NAPLES

  SEPTEMBER 27, 1943

  Connors stood in the center of a candlelit room and stared down at a crudely drawn map of Naples. The paper was torn and soiled, the etchings colored in pencil and charcoal. “You guys run out of crayons when you drew this up?” he asked, trying to read the street indicators.

  “It has everything we need,” Vincenzo said.

  “And I need to see and hear everything you know,” Connors said, looking up at the boy. “The sooner the better. We don’t have much time.”

  “The Nazis know our streets and roads almost as well as we do,” Maldini said. “They’ve spent enough time here.”

  “But they don’t know how many of us are here,” Connors said. “And we need to make that work in our favor. And we need to do something else.”

  “What?” Vincenzo asked.

  “We strip those tanks of fuel,” Connors said, walking around the small table, his eyes on everyone in the crowded room. “We strip them of power. We have to blow up that tanker.”

  Vincenzo and Franco exchanged a furtive glance. “How many explosives will that take?” Franco asked.

  “It’s not a q
uestion of how many,” Connors said. “It’s how close we can get the explosion to the tanker. The gas will take care of the rest.”

  “When?” Vincenzo asked.

  “Tomorrow night,” Connors said. “It has to be hit before the tanks can get to it.”

  “And what do we do until the tanker arrives?” Angela asked.

  “Get ready for war,” Connors said.

  They worked through the night.

  On the side streets that led into the main piazzas in the center of the city, a small squadron of boys raised barricades made from stone and rock and rested empty rifles on top of them. Maldini led the youngest of the boys through the sewers of Naples, giving each a marked post in the underground passage from which they could view the street above and be able to place objects under the wheels of passing tanks without fear of detection. Connors, Nunzia and Franco worked on the small arsenal of unexploded bombs that had been collected, separating the explosives from the shafts and positioning them at posts throughout the city, to be tossed at the enemy. Several dozen boys were placed on various rooftops and church steeples, given the best rifles and the most ammo, free to take aim at the German soldiers who would eventually pass below. Angela and little Tino found all the kerosene that had been stored in anticipation of winter’s arrival and placed the liquid into empty wine bottles, corking them with torn shreds of clothing. They left the bottles in church and building entryways, large lit votive candles beside them. Minor roadblocks were set up using old carts and discarded furniture. The strongest of the boys were sent out to lug large pots filled with seawater up to the highest buildings and rest them on top of thick piles of old wood. When the Germans arrived, the wood fires would bring the water to a boil and the water would be tossed down on the passing soldiers. “How’d you come up with that idea?” Connors asked Vincenzo.

  “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” Vincenzo said. “Only he had oil and much bigger pots.”